I. Introduction
This essay aimed to evaluate and critique the paper written by Geoffrey Williams and John Zinkin. It was divided into seven parts. First of all, I would brief introduce what the essay is about, followed by giving the description of the paper being evaluated. Then, theory and literature would be evaluated, with highlighting the theoretical frameworks used by the authors in developing the paper. Research design and approach would come to the fourth part, in which I would explore the research design and methods and discuss the benefits and limitations. Afterwards, benefits and limitations of the research design and approach would be given, and finally comes the suggestions of alternative research strategies/method and the conclusion.
II. Brief description of the paper being evaluated
The authors firstly gave an introduction and the aim of the paper that explores the relationship between attitudes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Hofstede & Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of business activity. The authors found the limitation of the current studies which only analyzed the CSR within one country or within one cultural group, so that they attempted to do some research on this field by considering the issues in more than one country.
Then, the volume of CSR was categorized into four distinct models: the instrumental and private wealth creating models, the political and social models, the integrating social demands models and the ethical models. And these approaches were mapped into Hofstede dimensions respectively. Next, five propositions based on Hofstede dimensions were developed and they authors discussed the impact on the propensity to punish firms with irresponsible behavior. In the followi...
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Boatright (2006) contend that corporate social responsibility denotes the responsibility recognized by a company for acting in socially responsible manner. There is no single universally accepted definition of corporate social responsibility, it has generally come to mean business decision making linked to ethical values, legal compliance, and respect for people, community, and environment. CSR accepts a company to go further than required by law so as to treat employees fairly and with respect, operate with integrity and in an ethical manner in all its business dealings with customer, suppliers, lenders, and others, respect human rights, sustain the environment for future generations and be a responsible neighbor in the community and a good ‘corporate citizen’. Hill (2009) asserts that corporate social responsibility has become a challenge which MNCs face in emerging markets. Galbreath (2009) support the view of Hill (2009) by saying that with increase in globalization, the importance of corporate social responsibility has increased a lot.
Corporate social responsibility is globally defined as operating a business in a way that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business. The concern of CSR has drastically increased over the last two decades. It has enhanced interactions between governments, businesses, society and internationally. In the past, businesses primarily focus themselves with the economic results of their decisions. Now, businesses must also reflect on the legal, ethical, moral and social consequences of their decisions. Corporate Social Responsibility is no longer defined by how much money a company contributes to charity, but by its overall involvement in activities that improve the quality of people’s lives.
An organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drives them to look out for the different interests of society. Most business corporations undertake responsibility for the impact of their organizational pursuits and various activities on their customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment. With the high volume of general competition between different companies and organizations in varied fields, CSR has become a morally imperative commitment, more than one enforced by the law. Most organizations in the modern world willingly try to improve the general well-being of not only their employees, but also their families and the society as a whole.
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The classical view of CSR is a prominent ideology which business organizations are seen merely as profit-driven organizations. Simply put, businesses work for the sole purpose of making a profit. Thus, this profit motive is the sufficient and unique social identifier that separates a business organization from other institutions in society. These business organizations have a limited, yet essential role in society. Social concerns are considered important, but businesses, in the classical view, are focused solely on the economic activities and are judged accordingly. By having a limited role in society (i.e.,...
Geert Hofstede performed the most lauded research on The Dimensions of Culture theory. His findings and the model that he created were outlined in his 1980 book “Cultures Consequences.” The work was met with both acclaim and disregard from fellow academics. Hofstede’s work is generally quoted and cited without any hesitation even today and his model is still widely used the main guideline for dealing with human resources from a cultural perspective.
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A corporations CSR should be shaped in order to fit the goals of the corporation, although every corporation’s CSR should differ, since most have different goals and different communities behind them. The CSR should be molded into fitting the corporation’s goals in order to make it easier on the corporation in giving back to the community while achieving its goals. For example, a corporation located in a desert wishes to be more efficient, by reducing water usage it is not only creating lower costs, which result in higher revenue, but also helps the community by not taking up so much water. Taking this into consideration, it is critical that the corporation goals and values are established and clear throughout the corporation, they should be developed by the board or directors and CEO, and the highest managerial level should stress their importance to the rest of the corporation. By making the goals and values at the top branch of the corporate hierarchy, it will be simpler for the corporates community to develop in order to nurture those goals and values. Therefore, a corporation can reach the “shared-value,” a value for both its shareholders and community in a simpler manner that can result benefiting the corporation in the end as well. Throughout the article many examples are given of actual corporations that have benefited and changed their CSR in order to fit their goals, therefore, providing solid proof that these methods work. Nevertheless, as acknowledged by the author’s themselves, most of the corporations taken into consideration where one’s that Harvard CSR students were employed
For Zhang et al. (2014), CSR implies that companies should be responsible not only for their shareholders, but also for their stakeholders including suppliers, customers, and communities. Carroll (1979) identified four types of responsibilities that might be subsumed under CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations. Economic responsibility means that companies are obligated to achieve profitability and satisfy customer needs. Legal responsibility indicates that companies must operate within the framework of legal regulations. Ethical responsibility includes some moral requirements. Discretionary expectation equals philanthropic responsibilities that contribute to society’s development and welfare. Wang and Juslin (2009) held that the western CSR concept does not fit the Chinese market and adopted the Chinese harmony approach to define CSR: enterprises should apply harmony to business and operate in a harmonious way between people and nature. The overall purpose of CSR should be cultivating humaneness, righteousness, ritual, wisdom, sincerity, and responsibility, and becoming a superior company. However, this concept is too abstract to conduct and few Chinese people can truly understand it without a deep understanding of Chinese culture. Many companies in China do not view CSR as an effective investment to improve organizational value unless CSR has considerable payoffs. In contrast to these misunderstandings, Stewart (2006) argued that companies and society actually have the same interests because enterprises cannot make profit in a corrupt, weak, poor society; and social progress can provide a healthy environment for company governance. As compared, Carroll’s (1979) definition emphasizes simultaneous achievement of a company’s economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic responsibilities, which can be applicable to all countries. In this dissertation,
In this study positivism paradigm will be used because it the best method will the quantitative analysis. We will be using questionnaire in our study. The questionnaire includes two parts 1 for the Business ethics and other for the CSR. There are 11 questions on Business ethics and 10 questions on CSR. The questionnaires have been adopted from (Fatoki & Chiliya, 2012). The questinnaire is based on the likert scale as all the values ranges in between 1 to 5. We have used 50 questionnaires in our study and the respondents we have selected are different organizations in the US. There are independent and dependent variables in our study. We will check the relationship ion between the Business ethics and the
Gallant, M. (2013, September 6). The Business of Culture: How Culture Affects Management Around the World. [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/the-business-of-culture-how-culture-affects-management-around-the-world
So far as international business is concerned, there are various different approaches in intercultural issue, and the theory of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is one of the most popular one. Cultural awareness is a main factor leading to the success of a business and lack of it can lead to their failures. Hofstede (1983) pointed out the importance of management a nationality for at least 3 reasons: political, sociological and psychological as these factors affects any issues in our life. Another well-worth mention is that all cultural reflects and common ways of thinking are rooted in the common culture but may be different for other cultures. It also figures out that characterizing a national culture did not mean that every individual within
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2010) Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, Pearson Education.